


chained by red

by etoilette



Series: AU-gust 2020 [12]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Minor Character Death, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25874278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilette/pseuds/etoilette
Summary: Goro doesn’t care, to be honest, but he asks just to be polite. “What did you do?”Akira winks at him, which is ridiculous considering what they’re talking about. “I killed a man too.”“On purpose?”“Supposedly.”ORAkechi and Akira are cellmates in the Tamagawa Juvenile Correctional Facility. They are also, apparently, dating.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: AU-gust 2020 [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1860436
Comments: 10
Kudos: 253





	chained by red

**Author's Note:**

> Additional TW: mentioned animal cruelty (death), tongue trauma, lip trauma
> 
> Written for Day #12: Criminal AU. I went to Prison AU instead, though! I was going to do something in my [bride of frankenstein](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25525759) AU universe, but I couldn't think of anything on time, so I did this instead.
> 
> I did not do any research beyond mildly what I have read in the past, and the prison level in Yakuza 4.
> 
> A big thank you to [crimes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes) for helping me with this idea uwu they really made it way funnier than it was originally! Although, I am sad to say, I did end up taking it a place I did not plan to near the end.

For the three months that Goro has been incarcerated at Tamagawa Juvenile Correctional Facility, he has lived without a roommate. He considers himself lucky, considering how cramped and filled up the dormitories are, but he’s been noted as something of a “troublemaker” and a “feral case,” so that might be why the facility has been putting off assigning anyone to his room. 

It’s a bit laughable, really, considering that most of the people are in Tamagawa precisely _because_ they are troublemakers.

The ‘feral case’ though...that’s special. According to the stern police officer who booked Goro in, he’s the only one who’s been given that title ever since Tamagawa Juvenile Correctional Facility opened their gates a good fifty years ago. Goro can’t help but feel a twinge of pride at that.

Having a roommate isn’t that bad, really, and Goro is used to it from his time in the orphanage. It’s just that...well, he doesn’t want to think much about his time there. He remembers the loud whisperings of his roommates when they thought he was asleep. How they cried and snored and snuffled and moved incessantly, until he couldn’t even hear himself think.

Okay, so maybe having a roommate would be pretty awful. That is, until Goro actually met him.

When his new roommate, looking wide-eyed and confused, is lead into the room by a stone-faced guard, Goro is lounging on his bed, counting the water stains in the ceiling. 

“Have fun in here, murderers,” the guard sneers, and Goro notes absentmindedly in his head that he has a toothbrush shank stashed away in his pillow should he need it to defend himself. He ignores the new boy until he hears the guard’s footsteps fade away into the distance, and then pushes himself up to stare. 

He’s tall (not as tall as Goro, he thinks) and lanky, with messy black hair that looks like it’s never seen a comb. If this is what he looks like on his first day, Goro is loathe to see how he would look weeks and months into his stay here. He has on a pair of glasses that make him look like a nerd, but if he’s here in Tamagawa, Goro doubts that he’s anything of that sort. He seems the type to drown animals and babies for fun, while putting on a good face for the teacher and parents.

Goro hates him already, but he pushes that down with a smile, making sure it’s properly menacing in case the new boy gets any ideas about him. “Hello. My name is Akechi Goro. I’ll be your roommate. I’m sure we’ll be able to get along well as long as we both stick to the rules.”

He doesn’t necessarily mean the rules of the facility, but the boy doesn’t need to know that just yet.

The boy puts his small bag of toiletries and clothes on the threadbare bed and nods. “I’m Kurusu Akira.”

He doesn’t seem bothered, even though Goro supposes he must be frightened. Maybe this isn’t his first offense? He doesn’t look old enough or wild enough to have racked up much experience being tossed into a correctional facility, but Goro doesn’t look like that either. 

“So,” Akira says, interrupting Goro’s thoughts. He has his hands clasped on his crossed legs, looking incredibly comfortable in the bare cell. “What did you do to get in here?”

Goro frowns. “Didn’t you hear him just now? I killed a man, just like you did.”

Akira’s eyes widen. “On purpose?”

“No. It was an accident,” Goro sighs, looking appropriately abashed at it all. “I was driving too fast at night and didn’t see him.”

“Hm,” Akira says. Goro can’t tell what he’s feeling from that, can’t get a good read on the noncommittal sound. “I did a pretty bad thing too.”

Goro doesn’t care, to be honest, but he asks just to be polite. “What did you do?”

Akira winks at him, which is ridiculous considering what they’re talking about. “I killed a man too.”

“On purpose?”

“Supposedly.”

“What do you mean _supposedly_? It’s either you did or you didn’t.”

Akira sighs and fiddles with his hair, looking extremely put-out. “Alright. I didn’t actually _kill_ anyone. I just saw these...these two _dead_ people one night…” He sounds nervous, voice trembling as if in the throes of a bad memory, but Goro’s been faking the same thing this entire time, so there’s no telling if Akira’s being genuine or not. “The next thing I knew, the police were there, putting me in cuffs, telling me that my life was over.”

Strange. Even if it’s a double homicide, it’s odd how fast the proceedings went. Without even thinking about it, Goro cups his chin with his hand as he ponders, brain moving faster than it has in a very long time now. He supposes it’s someone or a lot of someones with plenty of political power, someone like...But it can’t be them, Goro muses, considering the last time he saw _them_ , it was while they were burning to death in a warehouse by the harbour. 

There are plenty of corrupt politicians in the world, though, and Goro could have all the time and money in the world and he wouldn’t be close to putting a dent in their number.

“So you were falsely accused, then,” Goro surmises. 

“I’m really a hardened criminal though,” Akira says hurriedly, as if he wants to reassure him. “I’ve done some really crazy stuff.”

“Like what?” Goro asks suspiciously.

“Haribo.”

“Haribo?”

“I was...stealing Haribo the night I was accused,” Akira murmurs. He looks down at his hands and there is such a forlorn and lost gaze in his expression that Goro instinctively realizes that Akira is being one hundred percent genuine. “I stole it from a convenience store just because I _could_ and then I jaywalked.”

“You…”

“Jaywalked.” Akira shakes his head, running his hand through his messy hair and it unfortunately only makes it uglier. “I’m just as bad as you.”

Goro is speechless. Is this guy serious? For real? 

“I murdered ten people. I tore them apart, limb from limb, as they watched. Kept them alive so they could feel every second of pain. I burned them, listened to them scream for mercy, and then drove away. I would have gotten away with it too, if that biker didn’t show up.”

Akira stares at him, his eyes wide. Goro wouldn’t be surprised if Akira is looking at him with disgust, apprehension, fear...any of those feelings. If his cellmate was someone as deranged as him, he would probably have the exact same reaction too.

Akira is looking at him with something close to excitement in his eyes, like he’s just met his favourite actor. “You didn’t even get caught for that?”

Goro shakes his head dumbly, and Akira shifts on the bed, looking like he’s about to jump off of it. 

“That’s _amazing_.”

Great. It’s just Goro’s luck that his roommate - the first one he has to deal with after years of hard-earned independence - happens to be as much a psycho as himself.

X

When Goro first met Akira, his only concern had been that he would be a shitty roommate. Maybe he would be loud, or make weird noises at night, or try to jerk himself off over Goro’s sleeping face. He’s dealt with all those types before in the past with a vicious punch or stabbing, but Akira’s surprisingly...normal. 

He keeps to himself for the most part, aside of short and surprisingly enlightening conversations from time to time about the state of world affairs or philosophy. When Goro wants to be left alone to his own thoughts, he stays silent, thumbing through what looks to be an old diary that he must have brought into the correctional facility with him. When Goro needs _something_ to get himself out of his own head, Akira is always there with a strange anecdote or an odd comment about something he saw the other day during recreation time.

On paper, Akira is the perfect roommate. And Goro supposes that he really is.

The only thing that annoys him is that Akira _cannot_ sleep. It seems that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t fall unconscious, even though it’s close to his second week in the facility. 

“Just _what_ the hell are you doing?!” Goro had yelled out the third night he heard Akira twisting and turning restlessly in his bed. He didn’t even care if he got in trouble, he just wanted to know what was wrong with Akira so he could fix it and get his beauty sleep.

“My pillow,” Akira whined. “This one isn’t as good as the pillow I have at home. I can’t sleep like this.”

Goro growled at the immature reason. He wasn’t even sure what to say. He shoved his face into his own perfectly fine pillow and tried to tune Akira out, but it was hard to when he could hear drivel like, “Maybe I should sleep with you? You seem to sleep well with your pillow.”

Oh, hell _no_. 

In retrospect, it was quite the overreaction, but it was two in the morning and Goro’s only human. He ripped his shank out of his pillowcase and pointed it at Akira, allowing the moonlight from the window to glint on the blade so that there was no mistaking what was in his hand. He wasn’t surprised to see that Akira had indeed been in the process of sneaking off his bed, but the other boy was frozen now, staring at the knife as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

“You come here, and I kill you,” Goro hissed. 

“Is that a toothbrush?” Akira asked excitedly. “How did you do that?”

Instead of answering, Goro had put his shank back into his pillowcase with a last glare at Akira’s direction before tuning him out.

Kurusu Akira is soft. He’s the kind of person who is entirely unsuited for life inside a correctional facility, who thrives on constant positive attention and seems to lack the entire portion of his brain that is supposed to govern his common sense and self-preservation. 

Akechi Goro knows this. He’s the kind of person who’s been looking out for himself his entire life, even outside of a prison’s physical walls. Logically, he should just let Akira get stabbed or turned into someone’s bitch. 

He doesn’t quite know what happened to his own higher brain functions, whether Akira simply infected him with stupidity or what, but he finds himself one day standing over the unconscious body of a fellow inmate who had tried to feel up Akira during their shower time. Akira stands behind him, his face slack with surprise as he stares at Goro and his would-be attacker, as if he doesn’t quite understand what’s happened. 

It had taken Goro about a second to realize what was about to happen before he moved to knock the bigger boy out with a well-placed punch to the throat, placing himself protectively in front of Akira even though Akira should _really_ learn how to defend himself in here. He isn’t too shocked that no one realized what happened until the loud sound of the assailant collapsing to the ground.

“Holy shit,” one of the other people in the showers whispers. He’s staring wide-eyed at the prone body. “Holy shit...the double homicide guy just killed another dude.”

What?

The other people in the shower are backing up too, their horrified gazes fixed past Goro and straight at Akira, who has gone back to washing himself off. “That dude didn’t even do anything and double homicide guy just _murdered_ him.

“No, he’s just knocked out. I was the one who punched him,” Goro says.

“On his orders, right?” one of the boys stammers. “You’re his attack dog bitch, right?”

Goro considers telling them the truth - that Akira is just a baby who can’t even sleep at night without whining up a storm. That the only reason he’s in this place is just because he has extremely bad luck and timing, that the worst things he’s ever done in his life are being too impatient to wait at a crosswalk and refusing to pay 295 yen for a bag of gummy bears. 

But in light of what just happened...Goro takes a deep breath, holds it, and then lets it out.

“Yeah,” Goro sighs deeply, “yeah, you’re right. I’m just his attack dog bitch.”

The shower passes in relative peace, although Goro is vibrating with rage, unable to even wash out all of the suds in his hair until Akira pulls him gently back into the shower and does it for him. 

“Should we hold hands now that we’re dating?” Akira asks. 

Goro slams his elbow into Akira’s stomach, ignoring the way he yelps and falls onto the hard ground of the shower room.

X

Three days after the shower room incident, which Goro and Akira absolutely do not talk about even in private, Goro is walking out into the courtyard for his daily recreation time, albeit later than usual after his partner for cleaning duty messed up and dumped soapy water all over the wooden floor. It’s his first time walking out into the grounds without Akira by his side and he curses himself when he realizes that he’s instinctively looking for him.

He used to be fine with spending his time alone, staring at ants until it was time for him to go back inside. Now his recreation time is used to play racketball with Akira; the score is currently 6-4 in Goro’s favour and he intends to expand his lead as much as he can.

“...and if we can separate him from that Akechi, we can gut Kurusu easily. We’ve got the advantage here. Not even Kurusu could take down three of us at once.”

Goro twitches and quickly presses himself against the facility wall, peeking out around the corner. In a secluded area near the edge of the grounds, three boys are huddled together in a conspiratory manner, though they’re talking loud enough that Goro could hear them even from a mild distance, over the distant sounds of boys playing basketball. 

“Kurusu’s enjoyed his time as the top dog for too long now,” exclaims one of them. “We should take him down a peg.”

“I bet he’s super tight,” sneers another one. “Akechi’s probably the one getting railed all night - Kurusu looks like he’s the type to have a crazy sex drive.”

Akira spends all night rolling around crying about how much he misses his cat, and then when he does finally go to sleep, he’s a log. 

“He’s alone right now. Always spends this time with Akechi, but Toyama made sure Akechi would be late. Let’s go grab him now.”

“Make sure you keep him alive until I get a turn with him! I just want to cum into his tight ass once.”

“I’m afraid you won’t have to worry about that anytime soon.”

The boys jerk around, shock written all over their faces, but they barely have time to realize what was happening, let alone react, before Goro is charging them. 

He manages to get his nails deep into the face of one of them, ripping off his lips in a swift movement, while the half-finished shank he has tucked up his sleeve is shoved into the stomach of a second. The last boy is shaking, backing up and trying to run away, but he’s too slow. Goro walks towards him and casually reaches into his mouth, grabbing his tongue and pulling it out, his hand braced on the boy’s head so that he couldn’t try to bite him. 

Behind him, he can hear the pained groans and sobs of the two boys and he fights down the disgust he feels at their weak behaviour. Instead, he channels the rage into his voice, pitched low as he snarls, “This is what you get for even _thinking_ about touching Akira.”

He doesn’t give the boy the chance to make an excuse for himself, ripping the tongue out in a smooth move and tossing it carelessly onto the ground. Blood sprays out as the boy screams, tears in his eyes as he rolls on the ground, a red pool already around him. 

Goro looks down at himself - he had backed off immediately to avoid as much blood splatter as possible, and he lucked out. He’s clean apart from a bit of the tacky liquid on his face, which he quickly wipes clean with his hands, and then cleans off his hands on the slacks of the crying tongue-less boy.

The sounds of their screaming would no doubt attract attention. He runs to the other boys on the ground. The one he shanked is trying to remove it, though the pain seems to be too much, so Goro helps him with it, stabbing him through the throat in lieu of a “you’re welcome.” The boy without lips is given a similar treatment, and Goro drops the shank as he continues running.

Thankfully, no one notices him quickly joining up with a group of boys who are playing hacky sack together, though he can see a group of officers running in the direction of where the boys had been. 

He’s in the clear. 

Goro wanders around the grounds until he sees Akira, sullenly throwing a ball against the wall. “Akira, what are you doing?”

“Goro!” Akira exclaims, expression brightening immediately before he looks put-out again. “Where were you? I was waiting for you the whole time. I had to play by myself because you were late.”

“Sorry,” Goro sighs. He reaches out and takes the ball from Akira, tossing it against the wall and watching as Akira catches it when it bounces back. It’s the exact same thing as what Akira had been doing earlier, but for some reason, there’s a delighted grin on Akira’s face now. “I was just doing some clean-up. Nothing serious.”

Instead of tossing the ball for Goro to catch, Akira fiddles with his bangs, looking down at the ground shyly. “Since you had to make me wait, can you hold my hand tonight to make it up for me?”

Goro rolls his eyes. “Sure, sure. Anything for the top dog in prison.”

It’s meant to be a joke, but the small and genuine smile on Akira’s face when he hears that makes Goro wonder if perhaps Akira really managed to dogfight his way to the top of the pecking order without lifting a single finger. But that’s a question for another day. For now, he waits for Akira to toss the ball so he could beat him in racketball again.


End file.
